158 THE GREENLAND WHALE. 



tions to which it has been subjected have considerably thinned its 

 numbers. 



This animal is, when fully grown, about sixty or seventy feet in 

 length, and its girth about thirty or forty feet. Its color is velvety 

 black upon the upper part of the body, the fins and the tail ; gray 

 upon the junction of the tail with the body and the base of the fins, 



and white upon the abdomen and the 



— '=' fore-part of the lower jaw. The velvety 



'- aspect of the body is caused by the oil 



which exudes from the epidermis and 



% aids in destroying the friction of the 



water. Its head is remaikably large, 



being one-third of the length of the 



entire bulk. The jaw opens very far 



back, and in a large Whale is about 



The Greenland Whale sixteen feet in length, seven feet wide, 



{Balaena mystketus). ^^^ ^^^^ ^^ twelve feet in height, affording 



space, as has been quaintly remarked, for a jolly-boat and her crew to 



float in. 



The most curious part of the jaw and its structure is the remarkable 

 substance which is popularly known by the name of whalebone. 



The whalebone, or baleen, is found in a series of plates, thick and 

 solid at the insertion into the jaw, and splitting at the extremity into a 

 multitude of hair-like fringes. On each side of the jaw there are 

 more than three hundred of these plates, which in a fine specimen 

 are about ten 6r twelve feet long, and eleven inches wide at their 

 base. The weight of baleen which is furnished by a large Whale is 

 about one ton. This substance does not take its origin directly from 

 the gum, but from a peculiar vascular formation which rests upon it. 

 These masses of baleen are placed along the sides of the mouth for the 

 purpose of aiding the Whale in procuring its food and separating it 

 from the water. 



The mode of feeding which is adopted by the Whale is as follows : 

 The animal frequents those parts of the ocean which are the best sup- 

 plied with the various creatures on which it feeds, and which are all 

 of very small size, as is needful from the size of its gullet, which is 

 not quite two inches in diameter. Small shrimps, crabs, and lobsters, 

 together with various molluscs and medusa, form the diet on which the 

 vast bulk of the Greenland Whale is sustained. Driving with open 

 mouth through the congregated shoals of these little creatures, the 

 Whale engulfs them by millions in its enormous jaws, and continues 

 its destructive course until it has sufficiently charged its mouth with 

 prey. Closing its jaws and driving out through the interstices of the 

 whalebone the water which it has taken together with its prey, it re- 



